Tag Archives: concussion in softball

HEADS!!! You must be familiar with this yelling during the game and the universal response of folks ducking their head to protect it and prevent a softball concussion. But are you actually ready for it? You never know until it happens to you or to someone close to you. Read along to find out what happened.

Well, Are you ready for the spring softball season to start and high school softball to start? Specially now that the weather has turned so gorgeous (even though we so desperately need more rain this winter). We had one tournament the end of January at Salinas Sports Complex. It was just a Saturday only tournament since many of the teams were still on a break and we didn’t have enough teams sign up.

My 12-year-old had 4 games on Saturday. 3 of the games were against 12U teams and last game was against a 14U team! Talk about the mental dilemma! Even though some kids are as tall as the 14U kids, mentally they get spooked somehow that they are playing much bigger kids. My 12-year-old is 5′-6″ tall but long and gangly still. The problem is that not all her team mates are tall, we have some of the smallest kids (late growers) on her team as well and many in between.

Anyway, she and a couple of the 12U kids were playing against a 14U team in our last game and grandma had come that day to watch the games since she hadn’t watched her play in a long time. Grandma was really proud that she pitched really well against the 14U and struck out a few kids and walked a few, she was able to use all the different types of pitches (rise ball, screw ball, inside, outside, change-up) she has been practicing. It was just an opportunity for her to get her feet wet playing an older team.

After a couple of innings she was going to sit on the bench and watch the other 14U kids play, so grandma was going to leave and we turned our backs to the field to leave. You know what they say about never stand with your back to the ocean when you are at the water’s edge on the beach? Same goes for softball. There came a foul ball rising high up and over the 20 ft fence at the backstop and descended down and we could hardly hear “HEADS!!!” since it was cold and we all had our hoods up covering our ears and before we could see it, it came down on grandma. Thank God, it impacted grandma right at the joint of her spectacles (you see the picture above), and the glasses came down and impacted on her cheek but nothing else. Of course we didn’t know how bad she got hurt as she just sat down holding her cheek.

My heart just jumped out my mouth since I was so worried about my mom getting hurt specially as she was going to take an international flight in 2 days. A kind soul brought ice and another kind soul (probably a doctor or nurse) came immediately running to check if she had a concussion. She asked me to watch her carefully on my drive home which was an hour and 15 mins. I was quiet the entire trip just asking her questions trying to figure out if she is responding to my questions and watching for any signs of dizziness or slurred speech, headaches or any thing else. I have never let my mom talk for so long as on that day without interrupting 😉 I figured I didn’t know much about concussion and signs to watch out for. Do you know what to watch out for if someone you know has a concussion? Please read and get yourself familiar here “Concussion” before the season starts. Luckily for grandma, that was it, she had a slight bruising on her cheek but not even a swelling. Just the loss of her glasses. Icing and Advil took care of it. I’d say God was really watching over her.

I think there is more education on this issue of concussion at the youth sports now and I’ve noticed high school kids had to get a base line concussion testing before season starts so they can test them again if they ever got a concussion. If you are one of those people who don’t yell “HEADS” when you see a foul ball coming, think twice, you may be saving someone’s life by just yelling. Thanks to everyone that yelled that day. I hope and wish you all have a wonderful and safe softball season.